By the late 1960s, Britain had acquired an unenviable reputation as the progenitor of a number of high-profile, but ultimately unsuccessful, attempts at the closer association of often disparate territories within the empire. Examining the rationale for Britain's sponsorship of amalgamating colonial dependencies, Michael Collins has pointed out that federations were conceived as a ‘way of maintaining British influence in particular parts of the empire, a way of reconfiguring the politics of collaboration so as to defy the logic of nationalism with its fetishisation of sovereign territoriality and hence to maintain key British spheres of influence’. Despite these objectives, failed federations in Central Africa, the West Indies, Nigeria, Malaysia, and more especially Southern Arabia, undoubtedly served to damage Britain's reputation as a responsible and successful manager of the process of decolonization.

Nevertheless, British decision-makers demonstrably sought to learn from these experiences when it came to establishing a framework for the Lower Gulf in the aftermath of the decision, announced in 1968, to withdraw from ‘East of Suez’. Indeed, the former Political Agent in Bahrain, Anthony Parsons, recalled: ‘Britain had gained experience of unsuccessful attempts to persuade small regional states into political unions which they had not themselves conceived. The fate of the West Indies Federation and the Federation of South Arabia was fresh in our minds.’ More particularly, British policy-makers in both London and the Gulf made a concerted effort to avoid any attempt to impose amalgamation on the Lower Gulf Sheikhdoms and instead very much left the ruling Sheikhs themselves to take the initiative in fostering closer association among their territories. In some respects Britain was fortunate that the erstwhile foes, Sheikh Zaid of Abu Dhabi and Sheikh Rashid of Dubai, embraced the concept, if not necessarily the reality, of merging their embryonic states.

Despite the stresses of bringing the United Arab Emirates into being by 1971, and the gloomy prognostications regarding its longevity, the structure has endured and in many respects represents a success story in state creation. Nonetheless, an examination of the workings of the UAE in the decade or so after 1971 demonstrates not only the fragile nature of the new entity, but also the ways in which it came perilously close to fragmentation due to the ongoing rivalry between Sheikhs Zaid and Rashid. In particular, their differing notions of the appropriate relationship between the UAE and the constituent parts of the new state were a perennial source of tension. Despite favouring the survival of the United Arab Emirates as a single entity, Britain avoided becoming directly involved in its internal machinations, favouring instead to forge a demonstrably post-imperial relationship with the UAE. This in turn can be used to cast doubt on the extent to which Britain either could, or even wished, to perpetuate its influence through an attempt to return to ‘informal empire’ after formal withdrawal in 1971. As regards the UAE, its survival, rather than its internal rivalries and contradictions, is perhaps the more remarkable phenomenon and stands in marked contrast with the abject demise of the South Arabian Federation.